78- The Birds of British Guiana.' 



birds such as Eag-les. Vultures, Ilauks, flarriers. Buzzards, 

 Kites, Falcons; as well as Owls and XiL;ht-jars. It has been 

 convenient also to include the so!ii;iry Colonial specimen of the 

 cor\'ine family, the Jay, The Colony l^is more than its due 

 proportion ol' r;i])torial birds, there bein,L; some fifty species 

 of hawks and vullures . twelve of owls and the same number 

 oi niL;hl-jars or goat-suckers. 



\'ul lures number twelve genera and twenty-six species. 

 Hawks, including" all the rest, some eighty genera and four 

 hundred and eighty species. 



Haw/x's and Eagles may at once be recognised by their 

 uprigh^ and dignitied carriage, tlieir piercing and intelligent 

 eyes, hooked beaks and powerful claws or talons. The females 

 are generally larger than the males, but iiot so brightly 

 coloured; in some species, notably among the harriers, the 

 females diti'er so entirely from the males that they ha\c often 

 been mistaken as birds of different species. 



ValiiiR'S are the scavengers of the earth and m;i-\- be 

 known b)' iheir bare heads, and less powerful feet. They 

 feed on the carcases which they easily descry, as they so.ir 

 aloft, by their telescopic vision. Their sense of smell, as is 

 the case o f birds generally, is weak. They do not disdain to 

 feed on flesh and offal in a high state of putrefaction, jilung- 

 ing their heads into the reeking mass. 



The Harpy Eagle is the most powerful of his masterful 

 tribe and is so named after tiie fabled monster of classic, lore. 

 He ranges throughout tropical America and preys upon such 

 mamma.ls as sloths, fawns, pecaries, and monkeys. He must 

 noi be confounded with the Crowned Buzzard, a bird of differ- 

 ent calibre. Buzzards are slow and heavy ot flight and some of 

 them content themselves with such fry as small lizards, am- 

 phibians. and even beetles. One of them, the Awl-billed Buz- 

 :ard or Kite (as it is called), has a slender, hook-like, maxilla 

 (or upper beakj designed for extracting snails from their shells. 

 In case of need, buzzards, and some other hawks wdl even 

 feed upon leaves and berries. 



The Osprey or I'ishing Hawk, is an eagle in size and 



